Beth, I was glad to see that you had posted again. Be assured that we will do whatever we can to help you in your process. It sounds like you have surrounded yourself with some good people to help you. You are in my thoughts and prayers.

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Be an organ donor; give your heart to Jesus.
Exercise daily; walk with the Lord.

Beth, I am so very sorry about your DH's passing... Of course you know we're all here for you, as much as you want and need us... My prayers and love are with you now and always. I have read this entire thread since yesterday.... I'm sorry I was absent from the site lately and was not aware of what life has dealt you both. {{{{{{{Beth}}}}}}}

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__________________ Jocelyne

All things are difficult before they are easy. -Thomas Fuller (1608-61)

I want you all to know that your prayers and positive energies have definitely helped me. Thank you!

I am confronting this grief thing head on. It seems best to define it, address it, and work through it. Crying is good and I am doing quite well at that. I started one grief support group last week and will be doing two different groups starting next week. I need all the help I can get. I don't believe that dealing with the loss of a long term partner through death is intuitive, but some people do. I have always been weak on recognizing and expressing my feelings, so I get an opportunity to work on that. I am finding that there is nothing quite like losing a spouse, and talking with others who are going through this same trauma is very therapeutic.

The paperwork is finally slowing down. But I am surprised at all who need notified. Who would have thought I needed to send a death certificate to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles? They recently sent Rich a letter reminding him he needed to renew his drivers' license as well as his license plates with scary messages of late fees and such. Wanted to nip that issue in the bud but it takes the death certificate to do it.

My friends and family call and email often. I have not wanted any overnight company since shortly after Rich died, (I had people stay with me the last two weeks of his life). I need the quiet and space to do what needs to be done. I am now responsible for doing what two people used to do to maintain the homestead, plus work on this bereavement stuff. I still have not started to cook again. I am eating foods out of the freezer that friends sent me. The garden is doing well but not producing anything yet. Pretty soon I will have broccoli, potatoes, celery, and onions so I hope that gets me to cooking again. A cousin is coming for 5 days, in a couple weeks, when some local friends are hosting a celebration of Rich's life. I am not sure how I will get through that event.

And the mowing. When it is not raining, I am mowing, trimming and bushogging. I am without my main riding lawn (garden) mower. A friend loaded it up and took it back to where we bought it to get it repaired. Fortunately I kept Rich's family heirloom, the John Deere 111, which is an early riding mower JD made.

Hugs right back to everyone!

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Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. Margaret Mead

Beth, thank you for sharing this part of your life with us. Though you may not realize it, your way of handling every thing shows how much love and caring you possess for your husband, but it also demonstrates an inner strength that is an inspiration to me.

The celebration of Rich's life is a heart-warming thing for your friends to do. If you are up to attending, great, but do not feel that you have to attend. Though far from the same, I could not attend the remembrance for my grandmother. A friend reminded me that such things are for the living and not for the one who passed. Though friends may need to have their celebration, you should continue to do as you feel is best for you, and they should understand.

The Bureau of Motor Vehicles....priceless. It's good to know that bureaucracy will not end when we pass. I will wager your dh would find humor in that.

I am finding that there is nothing quite like losing a spouse, and talking with others who are going through this same trauma is very therapeutic.

It's so good to hear about your progress Beth, and that you are being so proactive in seeking your own recovery. That says much about your devotion in honoring your husband who so wanted the very best for you after he was gone. You are absolutely right in the notion that there really is no other grief like widowhood. Perhaps that's why there is a name for only this particular grief. Widow groups can be a tremendous help, including online groups. I know you will find, like I did, that supporting other widows will really help with your own recovery.
Kathleen is right about not attending the "celebration" others have planned if you don't feel up to it. While friends and family may feel it's appropriate, it's you who has lost the love of your life and understandably finds nothing to "celebrate". The most important thing is to take good care of yourself as you travel this long and lonely bumpy road. Friends mean well but when all is said and done, you travel that road alone. You continue to be in my thoughts and prayers, Beth.

__________________Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but rather by the moments that take our breath away.

I thought I would try to write an update. I am beginning to understand why the literature says to expect it to take from one to three years to successfully work through the grief of losing a partner. I am still working on the beginning of the first step, which is to define all your losses. A person who has lost their partner has also lost, in my case, my confidant, mechanical fixer of all things, partner in retirement, goals and plans for retirement, source of income, my desire to eat and cook, my advisor, tax preparer, work partner, support person, investor guide….. Each loss must be addressed and resolved. Basically I need to reinvent myself as a new whole single person, when this grief work is completed. And then there is identifying the emotional reactions to all these losses. This is where I need to do a lot of work. I never was good at recognizing or expressing my emotions and I am starting to amass some books to read. Really, that is what I expect to do a lot of in the next year, is to read and think. I am grateful that I have the opportunity to do this work at my own pace in the comfort of a beautiful home that Rich built for me. The grief support groups remain vital to my progress.

It has been so blasted hot here that I have not done any outside work at all for almost a week. I do walk the garden as the sun rises and see the onions need harvested and the garden needs mowed and weedeated. I had thought that this coming Tuesday looked like a good day to harvest the onions, but they have taken away the cooling trend. I had everything mowed leading up to this hot weather, and I even had thoughts that this could be the last mowing for this season, but we have had over 4 inches of rain in the past week and more is expected in the next two days. We have been lucky to get the heavy rains in pop up thunderstorms, so no drought here this summer. But the grass is growing like it was May again. I have been eating lots of broccoli, mainly in fresh broccoli salads.

My support system remains well entrenched. That is a blessing. A person really can not get through this grief without people to talk to, and especially people who have also lost a partner through death.

I have lots of work to do, but fortunately I remain an optimistic person.

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Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. Margaret Mead

So good to hear from you, Beth. Sounds like you are taking a considered, thoughtful, one step at a time approach to recovery. That's so good.

We're still and always here for you when you want to talk, cry, scream, whatever.

xoxo
June

Okay

Here’s my meltdown of this past Thursday. Rich had a life insurance policy that he was very proud of. He took it out when he graduated from high school in 1968. He received great comfort thinking that the death benefit from this policy would be the money I would live on these first few years after he died. I submit the application for his death benefit and wait. And wait. Finally I contact my local office to see when I might expect to receive it. After a few calls to the home office on their part, I come to find they have “lost” my application, but they did not lose the check they asked for, for an annuity payment to Rich that I knew was mine to keep, but that was another issue. I had the cancelled check in front of me so I know they received the death benefit application, which was in the same envelope with the check I mailed them. So I finally get the check, deposit it in my bank and as I exit the bank, I start to cry and ended up sobbing for two full hours. On the check, in large black BOLD letters was; DEATH BENEFIT FOR RICHARD DAVIS. It could not have been more stark, or final. And I did finally get the annuity issue straightened out and got my money back. You just can’t trust a business to do what it is supposed to do.

End of rant, thanks for listening.

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Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. Margaret Mead